"Zhao comprador, now that the foreign cloth business is so good, have you ever regretted quitting Suzhou too early?" Bafur once chatted with Zhao Dagui, and couldn't help but ask him.

"I used to be busy all day long, while grabbing orders for merchant ships with others, and desperately grabbing supplies in other places, it seemed that I had made some money, but I didn't have a quiet time.

How good it is now, every day is very relaxed, drinking tea, chatting, and taking care of the studies of my younger brothers and sisters when I am free, this is the life of the gods. Zhao Dagui said indifferently.

Dagui, are you making too much money and losing your direction too early, Bafur slandered in his heart.

As the consul in Shanghai, Bafur was nominally the highest-ranking British official in the region, but when it came to personal wealth, he was far less than those foreign merchants and Zhao Dagui, and even the average Chinese comprador was much richer than him.

"You told me some time ago that you wanted to set up a steamship company, open a regular cruise between Shanghai and Modu, and asked me to inquire about buying a ship, and now I am a little eyebrows.

There happens to be a steamship on the side of the army, so if you are interested, you can buy it and try it. Bafur sighed and decided to get down to business.

"yes, that's great.

Is it the Medusa or the Nemesis, well, no, Medusa has already been sold, that's the Nemesis?" Zhao Dagui said happily.

"No, the Nemesis is not yet decommissioned, it is another new iron-hulled warship with the latest propeller thrusters instead of the traditional paddle wheel style.

Now that ship is still in Hong Kong, they hope that you will come to Hong Kong in person, see it on the spot and then decide whether to buy it or not.

Say hello to you in advance, the latest materials and technologies used in this ship, the price is not low, you have to consider it carefully. Bafur shook his head.

"Hehe, I see, then I'll go to Hong Kong to have a look. Zhao Dagui said.

It turned out that Zhao Dagui used to say that he wanted to build a railway, but in fact, most of it was a disguise, but he was very concerned about buying a ship and starting a cruise company.

Some time ago, Zhao Dagui mentioned to Bafur that he wanted to buy a better steamship or ordinary sailboat to start a regular cruise ship before Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Naturally, Bafur raised his hands in favor of it, because there is no regular route between Hong Kong and Shanghai, and it is very inappropriate to rely on merchant ships to deliver documents and letters by the way, whether from the perspective of security or development.

If there is such a shipping company, it can open a regular cruise ship from Shanghai to Hong Kong, which can condense the five ports of China into a single rope, which is what the Hong Kong Governor's Office and the Wukou Consulate are happy to see.

After Zhao Dagui had a school in hand, he had a big heart, and if he wanted to start directly from a steam ship, he would spend a lot of effort to collect a large amount of coal from other places to Shanghai.

After Bafur reported the matter to the second governor of Hong Kong, Deber, who felt that the Shanghai consulate was reliable, praised him, and then used his influence to help find suitable ships, which now seems to be a good idea.

"I'll take care of the matter at hand and go to Hong Kong in a few days. Zhao Dagui promised Bafur.

A few days later, Zhao Dagui really packed up his belongings, took dozens of people, chartered a British merchant ship, and went straight to Hong Kong.

This voyage, which was very important to the history of later generations and Zhao Dagui, was called "Adventure Journey" by Zhao Dagui, who believed that he had gained many adventures in this voyage, which laid the foundation for the coquettish life of the following decades.

Bafur thought that Zhao Dagui would buy a boat and bring a few of his men over at most, but Zhao Dagui had other ideas in his heart and wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to make a good profit, so naturally he would not do it.

The candidates that Zhao Dagui will bring to Hong Kong this time include:

There are ten shopkeepers and associates of Dagui Commercial Bank;

There are 20 dart masters in the Fuwei Dart Bureau, headed by Zhang Meng, the head of the dart, and the cold-faced beauty Li Yingqiong is also among them;

There are 20 professors and lecturers in the School of Oriental Physics;

Zhao Xiaohu and Zhao Xiaomei, two Zhengtai and Lori.

Li Xinlan and Wang Tao used their influence to invite a number of professors and lecturers, and now there are 10 professors and 28 lecturer-level graduate students.

Because the school in the concession area is still in the process of being built, and even the students have not been recruited much, so these scholars are now a little idle, just living in the Zhao family's compound, reading the scientific and technological books collected by Maddox when they have nothing to do, and chatting with each other at ordinary times, but they are quite leisurely.

Zhao Dagui brought these people to Hong Kong this time in the hope that they would help him and see if he could attract some people from the Western academic circles in Hong Kong and Guangzhou to develop together in Shanghai.

For Zhao Dagui today, there is no shortage of funds and projects, but these Westernists who have some understanding of Western science and technology have become the most valuable strategic resources.

The group took a boat and set off from the magic capital, but the first stop was to Dinghai, which is Zhoushan in the future.

Later generations may not know that Dinghai at this time was not under the jurisdiction of the Qing government, but was administered by the British.

In the early days of the Opium War, British Foreign Minister Palmerston issued an order to Yilu and others in China to take advantage of the war to obtain the two islands of Dinghai and Dayuan as trade bridgeheads.

As a result, the British expeditionary force occupied Dinghai at a great cost, but because the local people opposed the British invasion and were unwilling to provide food and medicine for help, and encountered the spread of seasonal malaria endemic to Dinghai, the British army died more than 400 people in a few months.

In the history of the First Opium War between China and Britain, this was the greatest loss suffered by the British army.

After Yilu learned about this, he had no choice but to withdraw his troops from Dinghai, return to Hong Kong, and then tempt and force Qi Shan by various means to sign the "Piercing Treaty" and let Qi Shan cede Hong Kong to Britain.

In addition, the British Navy's attack on Dayuan Island was also very unsmooth, at first because it did not pay much attention to this island, only one light warship was sent over, but it did not expect to run aground in Keelung Bay, and the ship and crew were all captured by the local defenders.

Of course, the British army later did not recognize the ship as a warship, and the crew on it was not a military man, but ordinary merchant ships and civilian sailors, but at a time when the two countries were in a fierce war, it was logically impossible for a merchant ship to go to the territory of the warring country.

After the war, the Qing government beheaded all the two generals of the local defenders, which was regarded as an explanation to the British.

Yilu gave up Dinghai and Daguan, and instead signed the "Piercing Treaty" of Rausch, only to get a small island of Hong Kong, which made Palmerston very angry, and removed Yilu from his post on the spot, and then sent a larger naval fleet to Chinese waters to support the battle.

After a battle, Dinghai fell back into the hands of the British, then moved north to Shanghai, and finally attacked Yangzhou and Nanjing, cutting off north-south shipping from the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and finally forcing the Qing government to submit.